DJ Cleo reveals how Thembi Seete was cheated of her rights to iconic kwaito track
RENOWNED Mzansi music producer DJ Cleo, recently shared some insight into one of the biggest kwaito songs, Phants’ Komthunzi Welanga by Brown Dash.
The music we often hear, often undergoes several changes before becoming the final version.
During his interview on Podcast and Chill with MacG, DJ Cleo shed light on
how Phants’ Komthunzi Welanga was initially written by a certain vocalist and he wasn’t feeling the track.
When asked by MacG how the iconic kwaito song came about, DJ Cleo shared that it was actually a sad story, which he needed to talk about as he was sure not many people knew the story.
The producer explained that he was given the song by music executive Vusi Leeuw, who at the time was working for CCP records, to create a remix of the track.
The song was an a cappella and he didn’t like it, but worked on a loop of a certain part, which his friend Brown Dash heard and liked.
At the time, DJ Cleo was working with TS Records and they let him know he couldn’t work with people from outside the stable.
Some time passed and DJ Cleo stopped working with TS Records and Brown Dash dropped his second album, which was when he found out that Brown Dash had ended up using the lines from the original a cappella.
“I hear it I’m like no no. Remember he can’t write and nothing wrong with not being able to write ... The song comes out I’m like f**k and I remember when it came out it was a Thursday. Saturday, I’m at The Zone parking lot.
“As I’m about to leave I bump into Thembi Seete. The first thing she says to me, ‘ahh joe, ahh mfethu’."
DJ Cleo revealed that the vocalist of the acappella song he didn’t like was the Idols SA judge who had thought he had cut her off the song, as it was given to him, but he had already left TS Records when it was released.
Brown Dash re-sang Seete’s line of Mdu Masilela’s production, and he had to explain to the singer what had happened and how she was left out of the production credits.